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east county guitar |
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Guitars |
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I’m a guitar player, not a guitar collector. Many of us who grew up in the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s witnessed the dramatic—and often obscene—increase in the value of many guitars and amplifiers that were manufactured in the early-60s and before. We fantasized about finding one of a few “holy grail” instruments in the garage of someone who wasn’t as savvy about the burgeoning vintage guitar market as we were. The original instruments that inspired this market did indeed have an intrinsic and unique quality to them that had been abandoned |
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by manufacturers trying to cash in on the explosive popularity of the guitar in the 1960s.
Many people sought and found examples of these rare instruments—some out of a genuine love of guitars, others with a view toward their investment potential. Whatever the goal, the pursuit often required a considerable amount of persistence and consumed a fair amount of one’s time. A healthy amount of cash flow helped, too.
Though I flirted with the idea of becoming a guitar “collector” and making huge sums of money by discovering rare instruments only to turn them over at inflated prices, it never materialized—not on any sustained level, at least. Nevertheless, I did acquire a few prized possessions over the years—some of which I regrettably had to relinquish for one reason or another.
At any rate, the guitars shown here are the artifacts that I possess today. For the most part they are all played on a consistent basis, and a few are actual “working” instruments with which I gig regularly. I still get comments like “cool guitar, man” from many people I meet at gigs. And everyone now seems to know the market value of guitars, assuming that something that looks old must be valuable. So please click over to the next page and see what I have. —Gene Rochambeau |
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Copyright © 2009 Gene Rochambeau. All rights reserved. |
